Venugopal Rao holds Andhra together

Y Venugopal Rao hit an unbeaten 74 to hold the Andhra Pradesh innings together in their Ranji Trophy league match against Karnataka at Kurnool on Monday.

Winning the toss, Andhra Pradesh elected to bat but lost one opener early. There were, however, a string of significant scores all through the batting line-up. GN Srinivas made 39, and Fayaz Ahmed scored 48.

At the close of play, Andhra Pradesh were 251/5, with Venugopal Rao batting on 74 and RVC Prasad not out on 2. For Karnataka, Dodda Ganesh was the best bowler, picking up two for 46.